User's Manual
                                 Valami Commander

  1. What is it?				

  
  2. Installation

  
  3. About the program
    3.1. Panels and its vicinity
    3.2. The menus
    3.3. Command line
    3.4. Hotkeys
    3.5. Config file

    
  4. File Functions
    4.1. Standard operations on files
      4.1.1. Copy
      4.1.2. Move
      4.1.3. Delete
      4.1.4. Chmod
      4.1.5. Chown
      
    4.2. Operations on files
      4.2.1. View
      4.2.2. Edit
      4.2.3. Create file
      
    4.3. Operations on directories
      4.3.1. Get size of a directory
      4.3.2. Create directory
    
    4.4. Any operations with files/directories
      4.4.1. Compare two files
      4.4.2. Finf file
      4.4.3. Archive files
      4.4.4. FTP
      4.4.5. Multi rename tool

      
  5. Panel functions
    5.1. Rows and columns
    5.2. Selection
    5.3. Configuration Form

    
  6. Any other stuff
    6.1. Known bugs
    6.2. The mask
  
  7. Contacts


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  1. What is it?				 

This program is a graphical file manager for linux like Total Commader for that
(shit) W*ndows. It has two panel as usual. It can handle some archive file, but
there is no sftp handling, yet.

  
  2. Installation
  
Installation is very simple, just use the rpm or deb files.
Note:
On some Linux distribution (e.g. SuSE, Mandrake) after the rpm installation the
new directories will be created with wrong permissions. There will not be read
and execute permission to the group and the other. You have to change it to the
users can use the program.

After starting the VC it will create its own directory in the user's home
directory, the .vc directory. And it will copy the default config file, if there
was not any. The program will restore the user's settings there.

  
  3. About the program
  
In this section I describe how the program looks.
You can navigate the program with mouse or keyboard (chapter "3.4. Hotkeys")


  3.1. Panels and its vicinity
  
On the first look, you can see two panels, like other commanders. There are some
rows and columns in each panel. The rows represent files, and the columns
represent these files' properties. You can change what you wanna see in the
columns (see: chapter "3.5. Config file").
The panels has some attachment. The line above the panels shows the directory
name, that matter is shown by the panel. The line below the panel shows the file
counter and the selected file counter. And there are an information about
partition where the actual directory is.


    3.2. The menus
    
The menu contains the main features of the program.

File: 
  the sort stuffs are here.
F1-F10: 
  here are what you can do, with these keys (except F1).
Command: 
  the relevant operations are here, like create/edit symlink, chmod, chown,
  Find File, Multi rename tool, selection etc.
Options: 
  There is the config form (see chapter 5.3. Configuration Form).
  You can reread the config file here. And there is the child process
  waiter (because there is a bug in the program, see chapter "6.1. Known bugs").
  Increase/decrease font size (height) here.
Bookmarks:
  You can put your favourite directories here up to 5.
Help: 
  the help, About 
  
  
  3.3. Command line
  
The command line is an edit box, can pull down. If you wanna start a program you
should type its name here and press [enter]. The program will started by the
shell that you defined in variable execpath (chapter "3.5. Config file").
The started programs are stored in the edit box's pull down menu 
Ctrl+DOWN_ARROW, chapter "3.4. Hotkeys", note: you cannot change this hotkey).
This storage will be saved by closing the Commander, and reload at next start.
You can see the path before the command, where the programs will be started.
There is an "X-button" after this command line, this determine that, the started
program is launched by the specified xterm. (Many programs need this xterm,
like mplayer).


  3.4. Hotkeys
    
There are many hotkeys, that make easy to use the Commander. You can change
some of the hotkeys. You can navigate with mouse, of course.
First Alt+Letter jump to the row started with the string that you type while
you pressed Alt.

Let see the (default) hotkeys:
ARROWS - navigate in panel
HOME,END,PAGEUP/DOWN - as usuall
INSERT - select file
F1 - Help
F3 - View the current file or show the directory size
F4 - Edit file
F5 - Copy
F6 - Move
F7 - MkDir
F8 - Delete
F9 - Menu
F10 - Close the Commander
Shift+F4 - Create file
Shift+F5 - Copy file in the current directory (not to the other panel)
Shift+F6 - Rename file
Ctrl+A - select all files and directories in a directory
Ctrl+D - show the hot directory list menu (Bookmarks)
Ctrl+E - set the other panel's directory to the current panel's
Ctrl+F - Free child process (EXPERT)
Ctrl+R - refresh the current panel
Ctrl+N - New FTP Connection
Ctrl+1 - sort the panel's rows by name (default)
Ctrl+2 - sort the panel's rows by size
Ctrl+3 - sort the panel's rows by date
Ctrl++ - increase font size
Ctrl+- - decrease font size
Ctrl+DOWN - pull down the command line
Ctrl+Enter - add the filename to the command line (if filename == ".." add the
  path)
Alt+F7 - Find File
Alt+Shift+Enter - show the size of directories in the panel
Ctrl+Shift+F - Close FTP connection
Space - show the size of directory in the current row
* - invert selection
+ - add selection by a mask
- - set selection zero

in the viewer:
ARROWS - navigate in the viewer
HOME,END,PAGEUP/DOWN - as usuall


  3.5. Config file

The config file must be in the program's directory. Its name is vc.cfg.
It is well commented, see this for more information. 

    
  4. File Functions
  
  4.1. Standard operations on files
  
  4.1.1. Copy
  
You can copy file (by selection) from the current panel to the other (F5) or to
the current (Shift+F5).
You can set the destination directory, the filemask (chapter "6.2. The mask")
and choose whether you want to following symlinks and preserve the attributes.
in the popup window. If no preserve attributes is set, then the new file get the
default attributes by the system.


  4.1.2. Move
      
It is very similar to the copy, but it will destroy the source. You cannot set
the following symlinks option.


  4.1.3. Delete
      
You can delete file and directory both.


  4.1.4. Chmod
      
You can set the rights of file and directory seperately. There is a recursive
parameter.
 ---rwxr-xr--
 |||| || || /
 |||| || / --- other (rwx)
 ||||/  --- group (rwx)
 ||| --- owner (rwx)
 || - sticky bit (s)
 | - set gid (g)
  - set uid (u)


  4.1.5. Chown
      
You can set the owner of the file. At the moment you can use only numbers:
 500:100
  |   |
  |    - group
   - owner
   
      
  4.2. Operations on files
    
  4.2.1. View
  
Viewing file content. Only the content, not showing images, not in hex etc.


  4.2.2. Edit
  
You can edit file with an external editor (no internal). The exteditor parameter
specifies the external editor program (chapter "3.5. Config file").


  4.2.3. Create file
  
Creating a new file in the current directory.

      
  4.3. Operations on directories

  4.3.1. Get size of a directory
  
Default is the [space]. You can get the size of the directory recursively.


  4.3.2. Create directory
  
Create new directory in the current directory (F7).

    
  4.4. Any operations with files/directories

  4.4.1. Compare two files
  
Compare files in the current rows ofthe panels by an external program. The
program is defined in variable execcompare (chapter "3.5. Config file").


  4.4.2. Find file

Find files in the current directory. You can set the mask and the possibility of
recursive search. The results will be shown in the current panel. The filename
will coontaining the whole path.

  4.4.3. Archive files
      
The program can handle those archive file, that you defined in the config file.
There you can associate packet handlers to file extensions. For each extension
has its own options like copyin, copyout, rm. This options determine what you
can do in/with an archive file.
The copyin options are guaranteed only on files.
The command line's command are not available where you are in an archive file.


  4.4.4. FTP
  
The program support ftp protocol.
You can create new FTP connection by pressing Ctrl+N or by menu selection. In
the form you must determine the server (by name or IP), and the username with
its password, you can determine the connection port, as well. 
You can do a lot of things on the server (e.g. list, chdir, rmdir, delete, get-,
put files directories, mkdir).
If you leave the root directory of the server it will be disconnect.
The command line's command are not available in FTP (like in archive mode).
There are no timeout disconnection handling and you cannot continue a broken
download, yet.


  4.4.5. Multi rename tool
  
There is a very smart tool for rename many files. You can use many functions:

[NameFormat] = [[expr]|char]*
[expr]       = %char* | %{char*} | %int

---------
 [expr]:
---------

- %FULLNAME             - the full file name
- %NAME                 - name without the extension
- %EXT                  - the extension without '.'
- %TOUP[expr]           - convert upper case the [expr]
- %TOLOW[expr]          - convert lower case the [expr]
- %STRING{char*}        - return the char* string
- %POS[expr1][expr2]    - return the first occurrence of [extr2] in [expr1]
- %ACCLESS[expr]        - convert the [expr]'s characters if it contains accent
- %COUNTER              - use the file counter's value, you can use fix length
                          values
- %CNT[expr]            - like the %COUNTER, but you can give an unique lenth
- %CONCAT[expr1][expr2] - concatenate two expressions
- %REPLACE[expr1]       - replace the [expr2] pattern in the [expr1] string
          [expr2]         to [expr3]
          [expr3]
- %SUBSTR[expr1][expr2] - return the substring of [expr1] from [expr2] on
                [expr3]   [expr3] length
- %MP3[                 - return the current part of the id3v1 tag
        {TITLE}  |
        {ARTIST} |
        {ALBUM}  |
        {YEAR}   |
        {OTHER}
      ]

The expression can be date value:
- %{yyyy}               - year: 1999
- %yy                   - year: 99
- %m                    - month: 1
- %{mm}                 - month: 01
- %{mmm}                - month: Jan
- %{mmmm}               - month: January
- %d                    - day: 1
- %{dd}                 - day: 01
- %{ddd}                - day: Sun
- %{dddd}               - day: Sunday
- %h                    - hour: 0
- %{hh}                 - hour: 00
- %n                    - minute: 0
- %{nn}                 - minute: 00
- %s                    - second: 0
- %{ss}                 - second: 00

      
  5. Panel functions
  
  5.1. Rows and columns
  
You can set the columns' width (colwidth) and which column show what (colwhat):
name, size, date, rights, linktarget/directory(archive). (chapter "3.5.
Config file"). You have 5 columns fix. If you want more it is impossible, if you
want less set the unwanted column's widht to 0.

  
  5.2. Selection
  
You can select row, if you want some operation only these files. Use [insert] to
select only a file, '*' to invert the selection, '-' to zero the selection, '+'
to give a selection by mask (chapter "6.2. The mask").


  5.3. Configuration Form
  
There are a nice form to configure your Commander as you want. There are a lot 
of options. 
The tabs in order:
General:
  Some runtime enviroments are here, like execpath, exteditor etc. You can 
  define here how many bytes will be copied in one turn.
  The number of threads is not important yet because there are not threads, yet.
  But this will be determine the maximum number the opened viewforms in one
  time.
Visual:
  Some things that will be determine the commander looks.
Hot Directories:
  Trivial, here are the bookmarks.
Extensions (MIME):
  This is the place where you can associate programs to extensions except the
  archive files. This program will be executed when you hit an enter on a file
  with this extension.
Package Extensions:
  you can define new package handlers:
    packtype_ext=%EXTENSION%
        define the extension, when the user press enter on a file with this
        extension which handler will be start.
        %EXTENSION% firts character must be ".".
    packtype_handle=%HANDLERFILENAME%
        %HANDLERFILENAME% is a file located in the packageprefix directory.
  To open a current archive file the followings are necessary:
     - this format is required: %HANDLER% list %PACKAGEFILENAME%, so the
       handler must have the first parameter "list".
     - the output is appears on stdout. Format: %RIGHTS%:%SIZE_IN_BYTES%:%FILENA
       For example: -rwxr-xr-x:1223334:home/username/filename.ext
  You can copy out from an archive file, if the handler have the first
  parameter "copyout" and the packtype_copyout is true. Format:
  %HANDLER% copyout %ARCHIVEFILENAME% %A_FILE_IN_THE_ARCHIVEFILE% %TO_COPYFILE%
ShortCuts:
  You can define here, your own shortcuts.
Colors:
  You can change the color of some elements.

    
  6. Any other stuff
  
  6.2. The mask
  
It is very important, but you should make out the mask when you selecting a
file (the same as search file or in the file) and the mask when you do
something on a file.

In search or selection:
You can use '*' and '?'. '*' replaces any charaters on any length, '?' replaces
only one character. It is trivial in selection, but not when you search in file.
In this case, the program wants to find match in the file, you should use '*' at
the begin and the and of the mask, otherwise the finder will find matches that
on the begin/end of the file.

In any operations (copy, move etc.):
You can use only the '*' character, that represents the filename, that is
currently under the operation.

  
  6.2. Known bugs
  
- When you start a program, it will be executed as a child the main program.
  When the program finished, it stucks. You can free the process: Options menu-]
  Free Child Process.
- There are no copy in background
- No sftp support
- cannot handle directory copy to an archive file
- cannot change fonts
  
  
  7. Contacts
  
If you have any notes, or want to report a bug write here: 
Tuska Balazs [btuska@elte.hu]